[Dark Nest] - 1(5)
Leia smiled brightly. “Smart as well as beautiful?”
Han shook his head. “You’re a really good copilot.” He pushed the throttles forward, and the forested ridges below began to flash past in a verdant blur. “Maximize the rear shields. Koensayr just delivered a fleet of armed mappers to RePlanetHab, so things might get rough.”
Leia only stared at the throttles. “Han, what the blazes are you doing?”
“I’m tired of getting kicked around by these RePlanetHab pilots. It makes me look old.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leia said. “You’re barely in your mid-sixties.”
“That’s my point,” Han said. “Just because a guy goes a little gray at the temples, people think he’s slowing down. They think they can push him around-“
“Han, nobody thinks you’re slowing down.” Leia’s voice grew soft. “You have at least forty good years left. Maybe even fifty, if you take care of yourself.”
A prim electronic voice sounded from the comm station behind Leia. “And may I point out how difficult it would be to see the gray in your hair from another vessel?” C-3PO leaned forward, pushing his golden head into Han’s peripheral vision. “Whatever the reason other pilots have for thinking you’ve slowed down, sir, I’m quite sure your hair color has nothing to do with it.”
“Thanks, Threepio,” Han growled. “Maybe you ought to disconnect those vocabulator circuits before someone probes them with a plasma torch.”
“A plasma torch!” C-3PO cried. “Why would anyone do that?”
Han ignored the droid and took the Falcon into a wisp of low-hanging cloud. Normally, he would have circled around it to avoid the small risk of hitting one of the strange spires the Yuuzhan Vong had left scattered across the planet. But that would have required a second mapping run around the other side, and they simply did not have the time-not if they wanted to beat these claim jumpers at their own game.
When the Falcon came out the other side without crashing into anything, their passenger gasped in relief and pushed his T-shaped head between the seats.
“Captain Solo, there is no sense placing your ship at risk.” Ezam Nhor spoke with the mouths on both sides of his arched neck, giving his Ithorian voice a mournful stereo quality. “DPRA regulations state that when two parties file simultaneous claims, the Reconstruction Authority must give preference to the one with greater resources. My people do not have the means to match even a small rehabitation conglomerate, much less one like RePlanetHab.”
“You’re young, so maybe you don’t know this,” Han retorted. “But I don’t usually obey regulations.”
An uneasy wheeze shot from both sides of the Ithorian’s throat.
Leia laid her hand over Han’s. “Han, I hate losing to these world grabbers as much as you do, but Ezam is right. The Ithorians don’t have-“
“Look, we can do this,” Han said. A vast fog bank appeared on the horizon, its misty hem dragging in the treetops. “Borao isn’t an easy world to map, and we have a big head start.”
“And?”
“And the Reconstruction Authority has to log every claim it receives.” Han eased the control yoke back and started to climb above the oncoming fog bank. Risking a small wisp of cloud was one thing, but even he would not fly blind through who-knew-how-many kilometers of dense fog. “If I can talk Lando into sponsoring us, we still have a chance. All we have to do is transmit our map first.”
Leia remained silent.
“Okay, so it’s a small chance,” Han said. “But it’s better than nothing. And it’s not like we haven’t bet on long-shots before.”
“Han-“
“Besides, maybe Luke can swing us some support from Cal Omas,” he added. “That would-“
“Han!” Leia laid her hand on his and pushed the control yoke forward again, ending their climb. “We don’t have time to waste recalibrating the terrain scanners.”
“Are you crazy?” He studied the atmosphere ahead with a nervous eye. “You are. You’re crazy.”
“I thought you wanted to win this thing?”
“I do,” Han said. “And to do that, we need to stay alive.”
“Captain Solo makes an excellent point,” C-3PO said. “Without our sensors working properly, our chances of hitting an abandoned watchtower in those clouds are approximately-“
“Don’t quote me odds, Threepio,” Leia said. “I need to concentrate.”
She focused her attention on the gray curtain ahead, and whorls of fog began to peel away from the center. Han started to make a wisecrack about having a weather-Jedi for a copilot, then recalled what Leia had said to C-3PO and thought better of it. Her training was still casual at best, and if she said she needed to concentrate, it was probably smart to believe her.